Fort Brown
Fort Brown was a military post of the United States Army in Texas during the later half of 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. It resides along the southernmost ruins of the town of Brownsville in southern Texas. Noted to be one of the last, few settlements along the Rio Bravo, Fort Brown is nestled in a small, artificial lake bed less than a mile from the River Border. It now stands as a thriving trade town, dealing in Cattle and Bulk Goods, along with being a hub for caravans headed North into Texas and South into Tamaulipas. Origins Pre-War History In 1845, the U.S. Army began construction of a new fort (then known as "Fort Texas") on the northern side of the Rio Bravo River. This fort was meant to watch over the Mexican Border to ensure peace and a means defense in case one was ever needed. The next year, the fort played a role during the opening of the Mexican-American War. During the Siege of Fort Texas, two Americans were killed, including Major Jacob Brown. In honor of the fallen major, General Zachary Taylor renamed the post Fort Brown. In 1849, the city of Brownsville, Texas, was established not far from the fort's grounds. During the Civil War, control of the fort shifted sides several times along the course of the war, ending with Confederate control over it until the end of the war. In the following years of 1867–1869, a permanent fort was established on its location. By the end of the Civil War, Fort Brown remained a heavily populated, and well armed US fort on the border of the so-called 'Wild South'. It would continue to house US troops through the remainder of its years, staging garrison up until 1946, when it ceased to be a training facility for the Army and given to the City of Brownsville and Texas Southmost College in 1948. In 1949, developments began on the fort, many changes were made for it to remain 'Campus Friendly' and yet retain a historical accuracy. A small memorial site was erected, as well as the old Hospital Grounds and barracks being converted into a small, yet well-stocked museum. The remainder of the buildings would see a complete renovation of their interiors into student libraries and dorms. Fort Brown and The Blast While fort Brown was not directly hit during the Atomic Standoff of 2077, several medium-sized warhead did indeed strike several key locations along the Gulf Coast, including a major electronics and telecommunications headquarters less than 100 miles away. This led to large amounts of nuclear fallout and residual radiation to rain down on the mostly idle town. Within the first few months, over half of the town's population was either dead or experiencing horrific mutations, those who could escape (mainly College staff, students and nearby residents) fled onto the campus in hopes of some means of survival. Post-War With the steady decrease of fallout and radiation in the area, many former residents of Brownsville emerged from the rubble of the once peaceful with the hope of finding some sort of settlement in which to survive, luckily, the school campus was relatively unscathed of damage. Once significant radiation levels in the community dropped, residents began to move into the fort, fortifying themselves inside the old structures as they prepared for what the newly made wasteland had to throw at them. As the residents dug in, their population began to increase, small elements of a community was formed, and through it, stronger bonds arose. After many hard years in the fresh landscape of post-apocalyptic, the small community began to flourish, survivors from all over the county began pouring in, and the fort bustled with life, walls were erected, towers built and trenches dug, the fort returned back to its lively state. The residents, now world-weary of what was out there, began to create a form of government for their community, the Committee was born. Gathering up all the former Teachers, Scientists and men of wisdom the dwelling had to offer, government positions were made, lawmen were appointed, all under the strict teachings of the former College Headmaster, Monty Willfreid. Monty was a tough man who, at the head of the Committee slowly began to turn the Fort and its residetns into a primary stopping point for Merchants, ranchers and mercenaries heading south into Tamaulipas. He also pioneered the development of Fort Brown's government, turning the handful of lawmen and legislators that ruled Fort Brown into a true government. He created departments for Law Enforcement, with special offices for illicit materials and the regulation of land under their control. By the time 2100 came around Fort Brown was a prominent ranching town and trading post, this however wasn't all good news for the people, for as they grew bigger they attracted the attention of the various ruffians that hounded the wastes. A large gang of Comancheros, led by Don DomingoGarza, had taken notice of the growing settlement and decided it would be a fine place to make themselves Kings of, and thus set out to conquer Fort Brown. Numbering 84 men they quickly arrived upon the town's border and began to harass small time ranchers and farmers that lived near the border of government control. The Committee at first believed the raids were the act of some small group of bandits hiding out in the ruins of Brownsville, but as they continued and intensified the goverment grew weary and began to post more officers near the edges of town. After a particulary violent raid on a small ranching settlement, a single officer followed the Comancheros back to their camp in the ruins of the Brownsville and was shocked to see the amount of men that sat around their campfires. He rushed back to Fort Brown with his findings, The Committee thoroughly disturbed by this revelation began to look for options. They had perhaps 25 deputies currently patrolling Fort Brown and the surrounding area, these men were however lightly armed with their armaments being no more powerful then revolvers and a few Carbines. This in mind The Committee decided that the best option would be to create a militia. They put a call out for volunteers to join the Militia, with a total of 35 people coming forward, add that onto the 25 deputies they now had a sizeable force to help defend the Fort. The militiamen, led by Sheriff Tomas Aguado now prepared for the fight they were about to endure. Drilling as often as possible the militia, armed with hunting rifles, a few SMGs, and whatever other weapons the town could dig up sat in the trenches that surrounded Fort Brown in wait for the Comancheros. On orders from The Committee, all residents living outside the walls of Fort Brown were ordered to move within the fort walls at once, many complied without hesitation, not wanting to deal with the Comanchero's wrath. As the area was cleared out of targets for the Comancheros they finally decided to attack the fort itself. At 6:00am on a Sunday, there was a great wooping from town and suddenly 84 men mounted on horseback charged out of the darkness and towards the defenses of the Fort. The militiamen and deputies waited until they were within the range markers they had placed, when the Comancheros had entered the field of fire, they opened up, tearing the Comancheros to peices as they rode. Five minutes later the charging Comancheros had half of their number chopped down by a single salvo, and those who were left quickly quickly began to waver. However even as they turned to run they continued to be picked apart by gunfire. The Comancheros were wiped out at the foot of Fort Brown by a bunch of half-trained militiamen. With the destruction of the Comancheros, The Committee released the good people back to their farms, and ranches, leaving those who lived within Fort Brown releived that they no longer had to live cramped into their fort. The years to follow were known as the Boom Years. Boom Years The years that followed the defeat of the Comancheros and Don Garza were ones of great prosperity and success for Fort Brown. With the help of some Brahmin the people of Fort Brown were able to carve a path through the irradiated ruins of Brownsville. Through these cleared alleys the Fort's ranchers, farmers and other tradesmen began to trade with the outside world. At first the roads only saw caravans leaving the area of Fort Brown, but as merchants spread out into the wasteland they brought the attention of their home to the towns and settlements they encountered. Soon every farmer, rancher and town within 15 miles of Fort Brown was sending caravans to sell and trade goods within the Fort's protective walls. To this end the town began to become a beacon of trade and civilization in the South Texas-Tamaulipas region. The Committee created the Trade Commission, with the responsibility of regulating the various trade routes that entered and left the area of Fort Brown and organizing the caravans into an organized system of trade. The Second Protestant Republic The arrival of Reverend Martin Weir in Fort Brown marked the end of the Boom Years and the start of a much more oppressive era, of religeous oppression and totalitarian rule. Reverend Weir was a clergymen of the Reformed Methodist Church, having set out from the ruins of the failed First Protestant Republic setup in the ruins of Texas City was determined to fix what his comrades had done wrong in Texas City and to spread the word of God to the Godless Mexicans. He arrived in Fort Brown in 2162 to find the Fort under rather weak leadership, the original council members for Fort Brown had long since died of either old age or disease and thus their replacements were needless to say rather sub-par. The Reverend setup his church in an old building located south of the Fort itself and from there began preaching to the local populace of farmers, ranchers and other laborers. His powerful speeches and oratory skills quickly attracted a flock of some 50 people, and a year later that number had grown to 103, and he had gone from preaching from within the building to outside in the elements. He declared that the town's various issues (ranging from crime to bad crop yields) were the result of the devil's nectar and that the only solution was to make the whole town go dry, and to convert the populace to the true version of Christianity. With the help of his supporters he was elected onto The Committee and began a rapid series of changes from there. Through his charisma he gained the support of the town Sheriff and along with him the police force and militia, thus on July 5, 2168 he launched a coup against the current government. It was virtually bloodless and the Committee was deposed as Reverend Weir was placed at the head of the new government, which he declared the Second Protestant Republic. With the support of his allies throughout the town he began to reorganize the government. Turning the Department of Crime Prevention & Protection into a theocratic militia, whose job it was to enforce the rulings of the Reverend himself, he even deposed the Sheriff, replacing him with one of his own supporters Gerald Conway or "Bloody Gerry". Next he enacted a series of Blue Laws upon the town, declaring that the sale, consumption, production or owning of drugs or Alcohol was punishable by death, other laws included that every citizen must be a member of the Protestant Church, there would be no other denominations accepted with the town, a curfew was to be enforced from 9pm-9am and all people must be registered with the government. As these crackdowns began, Reverend Weir led the first of many raids agianst the surrounding towns, mounted on horseback the Reverend and a posse of 45 militiamen rode into the small town of San Benito (a town whose economy revolved around the production of booze and drugs), burning and destroying everything in sight. When the town was done burning they put the populace to the sword and returned home. This raid was the first of many that were to come to the poor people of the wasteland, trade between the Fort and the surrounding towns stopped, merchants stopped visiting the town for fear of becoming victims of the Reverends cruel form of justice and the economy as a whole began to stagnate. It was only 2172 when the people of Fort Brown began to get restless as their businesses failed, taxes stacked up and money ran short. They soon no longer saw their benevolent overlord as their savior but rather a cruel dictator that was ruining their town. However as tempers began to rise along came a man named Brian Hiller, leader of the 1st Artillery Regiment, a mercenary company roaming the South Texas wastes and looking for a place to setup camp. Brian and his men setup camp outside Fort Brown, with their array of mortars displayed prominently for all of Fort Brown to see. The next day Brian approached the gates and asked to be let in, the guard refused. Calmly accepting the refusal he walked away from the gate, a moment later the gate was blown off its hinges by an artillery shell. Brian and his men rushed through the gate and in three hours of bloody fighting took Fort Brown, deposing Reverend Weir. Thus was the end of the Second Protestant Republic, but what was to come became known as the artillery administration, as the mortars the 1st Artillery Regiment had brought along would become the main way the new military government under Brian Hiller would conduct diplomacy. The Artillery Administration Brian Hiller after his successful take over began to fortify the town, under his careful direction the town's old defenses were repaired and shored up. During his project to refortify the Fort he made several changes to the way the town was run, removing most of the Blue Laws that once governed the towns he once again allowed booze and drugs to come into the city for sale and to be created by merchants, and for a time the people actually liked Brian. However this all changed when a group of three fanatics to the Reformed Methodist Church attempted to shoot their way into the Fort's administration building, after being killed by his men Brian became convinced that there was a conspiracy against him and thus lucked himself within his administration building. From within the Brick and cement of the old Administration building Brian declared martial law and set a curfew from Dusk till Dawn, he followed this up with a series of rather bizarre and draconian orders. There would be no gathering of people in groups larger then three, the Reformed Methodist Church was banned along with all other religions, anyone caught speaking Spanish, German, Italian or Latin were to be executed at once, and all people must come out of their homes at twelve o'clock exactly, line up in lines and allow their homes to be searched for contraband. Brian's rapid decline into madness was only the start of the town's issues, making good on his order banning gatherings of more than three people he began to use one of his unit's precious mortars to enforce the law. Sitting in his office he would scan the streets with a pair of binoculars searching for suspicious activity, when he spotted a group of three people talking harmlessly in the streets he started dropping mortar rounds down upon them, shooting through his office's skylight. The result was four peopl dead (one was just passing by) and another three injured. This only served to deepen the dislike the townsfolk already headl for Brian and his men and thus planted the seeds for the Fort's next revolt. Gerald Conway, who had served the town under Reverend Weir's regime, began to plan the town's revolt against the "Artillery Administration" as he dubbed it and with his friends he began to gather support for the revolt. It wasn't hard to find people who had been sufficently pissed off by Brian's actions and thus he soon had formed a small army of rebels, all hiding out in their homes waiting for the day to come. However upon surveying the firepower of Brian's troops, Gerald realized he would need more than just a few hired guns to overwhelm the 1st Artillery Regiment and thus began to seek help from outside the territory of Fort Brown. The men Gerald managed to gather were not by any means of the best moral fiber or purest of intentions. The gathered gang of foreign support Gerald gathered included; Jeffery Holmes, the head of a gang of greasers, Alexander Perez, son of famed cattle baron Samuel Perez and just as power hungry, John Warren, an old clergymen from the Reformed Methodist Church and Cesare Xavier, a member of the Xavier-Bonaparte Aristocracy. With this group of mercenaries and supporters Gerald intended to overwhelm the forces of Brian Hiller and his military regime, claiming it for himself. The Dictators Jeffery "El Diablo de Mexi-Can-O" Holmes John "Papa Jack" Warren Gerald "Bloody Gerry" Conway Alexander Perez Mike Carrera Cesare Xavier The Great Merchant War of 2145 Falfurrias-Fort Brown War Present Government Brownsville Volunteer Militia Department of Crime Prevention & Protection Brownsville Circuit Court Bureau of Firearms, Drugs and Energy Weapons Office of Land Management Fort Brown Cattlemen's Union Trade Relations Commission Economy Culture Relations Category:Places Category:Communities Category:Tamaulipas